Monday, October 13, 2014

I do have plenty of excuses though! I’ve had numerous visits from lovely, lovely, interesting people and I will have more visits this week. Yes October is a month of visits for me and I’m enjoying the company, however that, plus the fact that I got bitten by the inspiration bug just recently and have felt the desperate need to write fantasy fiction has left me little time to write tutorials or think of recipes to share with you all.

So I apologise! I will try hard to do better.

Mrs Egeland’s News

I have been trying to start a new blog page, which will be a slightly more improved version of this one, a tad more classy. However its taking a bit more time than I imagined, basically because I haven’t gotten around to posting the tutorial I have in mind, because I haven’t gotten around to doing the tutorial I have in mind. I will eventually get around to posting it and then I will post my new web address and say goodbye to my blogspot account.

In other news, my fantasy fiction novel is going into print. As of yet we have no bookshops on board but that I will keep you informed, and as soon as its available to buy I will let you know where you can get my debut novel. For more information and a story synopsis check out Mrs Egeland’s Other Projects, which you will find in the page list on the right side.

How Do I Make It Up To You?

Jolly good question! Would you settle for a sneak peek at my debut novel? Yes? No?

Well that’s what you getting, so I hope you can forgive me!

The Trials Begin

Eventually, when their bodies complained with every fiber, they stopped footsore and exhausted camping that night below the stars in a forest clearing. They pushed themselves to build a fire, collecting wood in the clearing itself, not daring to venture too far from the others. Eyes meeting and smiles exchanged as they nervously collected what little wood they could find, all of them, eager to sleep but aware that they were surrounded by the unknown. Soon the fire blazed with heat and light, giving an atmosphere of familiarity in the dark, unknowable night, drawing the travelling companions together and strengthening the ever-strengthening bond of friendship and family that the mark seemed to bring to them. The trees were dark and haunting compared to the warm fire, and animal sounds echoed eerily in the darkness like some signal to begin the hunt of our unsuspecting campers. But of course, it was no such thing.

“To be honest,” said Agatha with a little gulp of nervousness, “I’m a little…um… uncomfortable in this forest.”

“You mean that you’re scared!” sniggered Jorden.

“What’s troubling you my lady?” asked Loreliana patiently and calmly.

“Um… wild animals… monsters… thieves… murderers… etcetera etc,” said Agatha looking over her shoulder, every word coming out faster than the last.

“My lady, you needn’t worry about that. We’ll protect you and the fire is blazing; animals might be attracted to it but we scare them more than they do us, and ‘monsters’ are usually more frightened of the light than we are of them. Thieves and murderers, well, we only have the strength of Jorden and if they can overcome him, then we shall be in trouble. But I seriously doubt that there are any thieves and murderers who would want anything to do with us, we are after all just three seemingly poor travellers,” said Loreliana, “with little or no trappings of the rich.”

“What a mouse!” whispered Jorden, but shut up when he saw Loreliana raising her eyebrow at him and rolling her eyes, her seeming disapproval sent a stab at his heart.

“So, we’ve told you about where we came from, what about you? What made you decide to start on the road?” asked Jorden quickly changing the subject.

“My father was a local physician; he knew herb lore and anatomy. One day as he was on his rounds, checking on his patients in the village he noticed a woman was following him, she seemed like a beggar or something so he took no notice. Then that night someone knocked on his door, he wondered who it could be at such a late hour but he picked up his bag and opened the door, ready to leave if it was some kind of emergency. There at the door was a man, dirty and dressed in rags, he asked my father if he could come in. My father was a bit suspicious, but he couldn’t see any weapons on the man and so he let the man in. The man was my real father, he told my father that he and his wife, my real mother, had been watching him for a few days, saw how he treated people with illness and that they thought he must be a very clever and kind man. He told my father that they were both very ill and would die very soon, but that they had a small daughter, of a little more than three years old and would he be willing to take care of me? He told them that it was a very big decision and that he wanted a day to think about taking on such a big responsibility. The man seemed to agree and left him to think it over. The next day my father wasn’t so eager to take on a child, he was quite sure he couldn’t be a good father, but it seemed my real mother and father were dying faster than they appeared because the very next morning he found me on the doorstep, wrapped up in cloth with a note, telling him about my special gift and apologising that they had to leave me like that. My father told me he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to cope but soon he fell in love with me and was glad that my real parents had left me on his doorstep.” Said Loreliana.

“Wow, that’s a much better story than mine!” said Agatha looking at Jorden.

“Or mine,” said Jorden.

They slept around the fire, and for Agatha’s sake Jorden kept watch, his sword in hand, ready to fend off anything that might strike. He sat there, alert for two hours looking in the direction of every peep, and slowly like the thief of time that it is, sleep crept upon him and stole his wakefulness. He crumbled like a well-loved teddy bear after five generations of care. He slept for mere moments but it was enough, an opportunity for a real life animal to come upon the camp, a brown bear, thin and starving. It smelled what little food they had and thought of it as an easy meal, a table set and all it needed do was sit and eat. It nosed into the camp, and its sniffling was what woke Jorden, his eyes flashed open and cried out at the bear who stood nearer him than the women, suddenly the bear swiped its heavy paw, like a glove filled with lead and threw Jorden’s body across the camp where he landed on a protruding rock. His body lay prostrated across the rock as it slowly and painfully slipped down into a crumpled heap. He waved his sword from the grassy floor with no real strength in the air, more like a call for help than any real threat. The growling and snorting of the angry bear as it stood on its back legs awoke Agatha and Loreliana from their sleep, and it thumped down from its position back on to all four legs. Loreliana screamed. Agatha jumped up and spun on the spot, facing the bear.

“A bear!” said Loreliana breathlessly, recovering from her first shock, as she began rising to her knees as slowly as possible. The bear watched as the two once lane figures rose and once more rose itself, until it was standing on its back legs, six or seven feet tall; roared once more, aggravated by its hunger and fearing this movement when it had expected none. Agatha’s hand automatically reached for the stone that hung over her heart, her life-long protector. Loreliana began to dance in front of the animal, hopping from one foot to the other doing her best to keep the bear uncertain and distract it from Jorden’s prone body as he passed out once more. The stone shone. Agatha wished in her heart that there was something more she could do, something that miraculously would automatically solve the problem and rid them of this danger. The stone shone even brighter, stronger. The more fear she felt, the stronger the light grew. She remembered her adopted father’s voice telling her how when he had found her she had screamed in anguish and that the stone had shone so bright that it almost blinded him. She realised that now, with a combination of wishing and pure terror, she might produce the same blinding light and almost with her every breath the light grew stronger, intensifying and burning till it was as strong as the light from the sun. All this took seconds to happen, and takes longer in the telling than its occurrence. Quickly the light from the stone was so bright that the bear, scared, shocked by this blinding light, turned tail and ran lumbering back into the forest and then as quickly as the light had shone it dwindled back to nothing. Agatha was frozen to the spot, blinded and shocked at the light that had come forth from the stone around her neck. Trying desperately to understand how her thoughts and feelings had produced it.

“Jorden!” cried Loreliana running to his aid, wiping the tears of fear from her eyes. She looked over his broken body, his right side bleeding from the gouged wound, that was long and thick like trenches into his flesh and he held his left side groaning in pain.

“My lady, I need your help!” cried Loreliana. She watched as Jorden bled excessively, his eyelids fluttering as he apparently slipped in and out of consciousness, she had to do something. Agatha was like a zombie, catatonic, stuck in the moment that she had frightened away the bear, filled with the fear of her own capabilities.

“AGATHA!” screamed Loreliana, in some vain attempt to return her to the present. “I need your help. Jorden is bleeding, and I need your help!” It was enough to snap her out of it. She blinked, shook her blonde head and soon was running to her aid.

“I need you to find something to use to put pressure on that wound,” said Loreliana firmly, it was the voice of experience and it held a magic tone of authority that could lead even generals. Loreliana carefully pushed on Jorden’s chest. He tensed and groaned in anguish.

“Sorry Jorden,” she said almost under her breath.

He nodded and frowned with the pain. His breath was light and his face contorted in agony at each breath.

“Jorden, do you feel sleepy at all?” asked Loreliana searching for the symptoms that would agree with her own diagnosis. His pale face nodded with a grimace. She leant her head next to his chest, listening to his beating heart and uneven breathing.

“Your ribs hurt don’t they? Tell me, got a headache?”

“No, just feel dizzy and I can hardly breathe,” replied Jorden wheezily

“All right Jorden, do you know any good folk songs?” said Loreliana in a soothing voice

“Here, what about this?” said Agatha, who after searching began ripping at her petticoats

“Perfect! My lady,” she said, her voice shaking ever so slightly. “Put pressure on the wound, cover it and press hard on it, to stop it bleeding.”

“No,” croaked Jorden, as pain from Agatha’s pressure suffused his face with pain once more.

“Sorry, but I need her to press on your wound!” said Loreliana worriedly.

“I meant, no I don’t know any songs,” he croaked painfully.

Loreliana smiled shaking her head mockingly her forced joviality covering her shaken nerves as she tried to bring tranquillity to the situation before her and said, with a “Well it’s good that I do!”

She started to sing,

In the days of the Queen of the sun,

There will be a company,

Together with one.

She will travel along the road

To the land where she belongs,

The land that calls for her aid.

She sang on, weaving melodies in the air, like an expert basket weaver. Somehow the song made Agatha and Jorden feel better. It made Agatha’s shock melt into nothing and Jorden’s physical pain ease. It was as if someone had stopped time and taken them to their mother’s lap, where she was crooning over them, tenderly stroking their heads. All of the bad feelings, even the ever constant homesickness disappeared like snow under the hot rays of the sun. She stopped singing a moment,

“Jorden, give me both of your hands,” said Loreliana quietly as if in some sanctified place.

She resumed singing, and her lilting song hovered in the air like some kind of incense, soothing the cares of the world, blanketing the clearing like a quilt. She pushed Jorden’s hand out flat with her palms and closed her eyes as she continued to sing the soothing lullaby.

“My caring angel,” he mumbled as Jorden felt his eyes grow heavier, filled with the sand of dreams and sleep invaded him, washing away the aches and pains in his injured body like hot water after a long day. He dreamt of green pasture, ripened wheat fields and heavily scented honeysuckle, of ripened orchards, of deep orange sunsets tickled with indigo clouds and the warm arms of his mother and the scent that pervaded her. He felt himself once more a child and he felt the caring hand stroke his head. He slept heavily and deeply.

“He’s strong, he’ll be well soon enough, my lady,” whispered Loreliana over Jorden’s sleeping body. “His bones will have by now knitted well enough and the wound…”

Agatha lifted the corner of the piece of cloth she had been holding over it that was tinted by the brown red stain of blood.

“Wow, its healed fast!” she gasped at the miraculous feat, removing the bloodstained pad.

“We shall have to stay here a little longer than we’d intended, my lady, but I should think he will be well enough to continue the journey the day after tomorrow,” said Loreliana still in the deep, quiet whisper that seemed to reach Agatha’s ear with ease.

“Did you do that?” asked Agatha

“Do what my lady?” asked Loreliana

“Make him heal so fast!” replied Agatha

“It is the body that heals. I merely gave some of my strength to his body, nothing more. That’s what enables the body to work harder and therefore heal faster,” said Loreliana modestly and matter-of-factly as she stifled a yawn.

“I should keep watch,” said Agatha, picking up Jorden’s sword.

“My lady, I think that you will have scared any dangerous animals off for miles around. I should imagine it is safe enough,” said Loreliana looking at Agatha’s tired face.

“Maybe you’re right, Loreliana,” said Agatha, clutching once more at the stone around her neck, she lay down near the burning embers of the fire. Loreliana, assuring herself of Jorden’s sleep, threw a few more pieces of wood on the fire, moved Jorden’s sword out of his hand and making sure it would be nearer her own position she also lay, positioning herself between the fire and Jorden, in case she needed to attend to him in the night, and they all slept undisturbed the rest of the night.

So Opinions?

So what do you think? Does it leave you wanting to read more? Please leave comments below.